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“Forget about essences.” Philosopher Daniel Dennett on how modern-day philosophers should be more collaborative with scientists if they want to make revolutionary developments in their fields.

The late philosopher suggested adding a couple of “Occam’s heuristics” to your critical thinking toolbox.

Voltaire’s wonderful satire, Candide, remains a useful work-life antidote to bogus platitudes and naive optimism.

Do we really need to be religious to run a society well?

Arguments don’t have to be about winning or losing; they can help us build trust despite disagreeing.

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Human thinking is antiquated.

If the “self” is not real, then we are slaves to a billiard ball universe, trapped in a nihilistic nightmare in which we cannot change our fate.

Neuroscientist Christof Koch on human minds, AI, and bacteria.

There are three barriers we need to overcome to have better, more productive arguments.

From “Thompson’s violinist” to the “Experience Machine,” these thought experiments will throw your mind for a loop.

Philosophers, theoretical physicists, psychologists, and others consider what or who is really in control.

Three years after the pandemic began, we still don’t know the origin of COVID. A strange lack of curiosity has stifled the debate.

We all employ heuristics to help us deal with the world. But when we make a hasty generalization, we risk making a big error in our thinking.

Your life is far more arbitrary than you might think.

How does philosophy try to balance having free will with living in a deterministic universe?

The world is changing, and technology is driving that change. Today, that observation is about as compelling as the insight that water runs downhill. It’s just what technology (and water) […]

Spirituality can be an uncomfortable word for atheists. But does it deserve the antagonism that it gets?

Thought expriments are great tools, but do they always do what we want them to?

Having helped transform how creative work is financed, Yancey Strickler has moved on from Kickstarter, the company he co-founded toward a kind of values reset that moves us away from a narrow, unsustainable, inhumane obsession with profit at all costs.

Quick! There’s a runaway train on the tracks. Some dastardly evildoer has knocked the driver out cold and tied five people to the tracks ahead. The train is barreling down […]

content.jwplatform.com George Rupp Introduces His Book ‘Globalization Challenged’ Refugee expert George Rupp shifts our view of globalization away from the … content.jwplatform.com Daniel Dennett Explores Darwinism and Outer Space Daniel […]

Going mad with Christmas cheer? Try one of these alternatives.

From psychology to neuroscience, what we believe is not nearly as relevant as why we do.

Can all three co-exist?

Atheism has been called many things over the years. Is it a cult, and what is a cult anyway?

The Big Think+ team is thrilled to present 23 brand new videos! The experts featured below are diverse in both their backgrounds and skill sets, ranging from a theoretical physicist […]

The deepest, funniest, weirdest moments from the past year of the Think Again podcast. Featuring Daniel Dennett, Sarah Goldhagen, Ian McEwan, Alison Gopnik, Erik Kandel, and Alan Alda.

Philosopher Daniel Dennett believes AI should never become conscious — and no, it’s not because of the robopocalypse.

At some point in life, you’ve probably asked yourself how in-control of your own actions you are. Could you have stopped yourself from eating that extra morsel? In other words, do you have free will?